Police found £40k stash in drugs raid

A ROOFER who offered to sell Ecstasy to undercover police had £40,000 in cash stashed at his Cambridge home.

James Wilks was hiding £40,345 in a bag in a cupboard at his home in the city's Jack Warren Green.

Police who searched the house in November 2005 found no drugs but seized the cash, which has increased by almost £1,400 since it was placed into an interest-bearing account, Cambridge Crown Court was told when Wilks was finally brought to book for his bid at drug-dealing.

The Inland Revenue, to whom Wilks had apparently claimed he had earned less than £5,000 over the previous five years, is now in charge of the cash.

The 24-year-old admitted offering to sell 5,000 Ecstasy tablets to undercover detectives during an operation in Cambridge two years ago targeting people who handle stolen property and deal in drugs.

Wilks' involvement - accepted as "peripheral" - centred on a meeting his friend, John McCarthy, had with undercover officers in the car park at Sainsbury's store in Coldham's Lane, the court was told.

McCarthy, subsequently jailed for four years for drug-dealing, asked the officers if they "wanted to buy anything".

Wilks then said he had 5,000 Ecstasy tablets he wanted to "get rid of at £1 each".

Wilks, who had been in trouble when he was younger, is now said to "have turned a corner" and was staying on the straight and narrow, had no other contact with the officers until his home was raided later.

Finally before the court for sentence after an 18-month delay, Wilks admitted a charge of offering to supply the drug on the basis that he was acting for McCarthy and stood to make no profit.

Wilks, who has since moved to Bullen Close, Cherry Hinton was handed an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, along with two years' probation supervision.